Unit 3 terms Flashcards
Environmental Sustainability
a state in which the demands placed on the environment can be met without reducing its capacity to allow all people to live well, now and into the future.
Social Sustainability
The focus is that people’s needs are being met- now and into the future
Economic Sustainability
About ensuring that in developing resources we do so in a way that will enable people’s economic needs to be met, now and into the future.
Land Cover
The observed biophysical cover on the Earth’s surface. Includes what exists on land surfaces- the natural biophysical features of vegetation, water, ice and bare rock and soil, together with human activity such as agriculture and urban landscapes
Land Use
How people use areas of the land.
Characterized by the arrangements, activities and inputs people undertake in a certain land cover type to produce change or maintain it.
Natural processes that cause land cover changes
Climate change
Geophysical + geological changes
Plant succession
Fires + pests
Human activities that cause land cover change
Population dynamics
Technology
Policies
Plant Succession
The directional non-seasonal cumulative change in the types of plant species that occupy a given area through time. It involves the process of colonization, establishment and extinction, which act on the participating plant species
The 8 categories of land cover
-Cultivated and Managed
-Natural and semi-natural vegetation
-Cultivated aquatic or regularly flooded areas
-Natural and semi-natural aquatic land cover or regularly flooded vegetated areas
-Artificial surfaces and associated areas
-Bare areas
-Artificial water bodies, snow and ice
-Natural water bodies, snow and ice
Glacier definition
a body of ice formed on land and in motion, confined by terrain, most commonly valleys
Definition of Last Glacial Maximum (LGM)
Most recent period in Earth’s history when the glaciers were at their thickest and the sea levels at their lowest, roughly 21000-18000 years ago.
Definition of Holocene Climatic Optimum (HCO)
A warm period during roughly the interval 9000-5000 years before the present, with a thermal maximum approx. 8000 years before present.
Define the cryosphere
The components of the Earth system at and below the land and ocean surface that are frozen.
What are the 6 categories of the cryosphere?
-sea ice
-land covered by ice sheets, including ice shelves
-land such as tundra covered by ice every winter
-land underlain by permafrost
-peri-glacial zones on the margins of ice bound land
-land covered by glaciers
What is tundra?
A type of biome where tree growth is hindered by frigid temperatures and short growing seasons.
What is permafrost?
A permanently frozen layer on or under Earth’s surface.
What are peri-glacial zones?
A cold climate marginal to the glacial environment
What is accumulation?
Annual snowfall and ice which does not entirely melt in the summer months and builds up over time
What is the terminus of a glacier?
Where the glacier ice starts to melt
What is ablation?
The process of melting ice on a glacier
What is the equilibrium line of a glacier?
The place where accumulation is equal to ablation
What is glacier mass balance?
The gain and loss of ice from the glacier system.
A glacier is the product of how much mass it receives and how much it loses by melting.
Definition of ice sheets
Vast masses of ice (not confined to valleys), domed in shape, form in high latitude regions.
Sometimes called continental glaciers
Most significant examples=
Antarctica + Greenland
